Book Launch 'On Super-diversity' by Tariq Ramadan at Witte de With
REFLECTIONS 02
ON SUPER-DIVERSITY by Tariq Ramadan
Witte de With Publishers & Sternberg Press.
BOOK LAUNCH EVENT: 30 JANUARY 2012 (7 pm)
At Witte de With | Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam, The Netherlands).
The event included a discussion between Tariq Ramadan and Willem Schinkel, respondent Wendelien van Oldenborgh; preceded by projection of Van Oldenborgh's slide work Supposing I love you. And you also love me., 2011, featuring Tariq Ramadan.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
One of the greatest challenges for art and culture, sounded by intellectuals and also by funding bodies, is to represent diversity. But what precisely does this term mean and why does it so often placate rather than produce what it names? Prof. Steven Vertovec, Director of the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (Göttingen, Germany) puts forward the notion of super-diversity, noting the need to re-evaluate conceptions and policy measures surrounding diversity by way of moving beyond an ethno-focal understanding and adopting a multidimensional approach.
Developing this idea further, while aiming to question and complicate the focus on immigration in the current debate, the prolific and provocative scholar and activist Tariq Ramadan weighs in on the subject. In the resulting essay, translated into Dutch and Arabic, Prof. Ramadan sets out an argument that foregrounds universalism as a necessary, if de-valued, horizon and offers a critique of the uses and limits of dialogue and discourse within the day to day practice of super-diversity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Prof. Ramadan has a unique history of engagement in the politics of diversity, as Chair of Identity and Citizenship at Erasmus University in Rotterdam and as a special advisor on integration to the city council, until his controversial dismissal from both posts in August 2009. Among his numerous academic and advisory roles, he is also Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University and President of the European Muslim Network, a think-tank in Brussels. Recent publications include Recent publications include L'islam et le réveil arabe (Presses du Châtelet, 2011), The Quest for Meaning, Developing a Philosophy of Pluralism (Allen Lane, 2010), What I Believe (Oxford University Press, 2009), Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation (Oxford University Press, 2009), and Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity (Islamic Foundation, 2009).
ABOUT WITTE DE WITH:
Witte de With is a Center for Contemporary Art established in 1990 based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands: wdw.nl.
Witte de With Contemporary Art
December 31, 2015 - Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Witte de With, Centre for Contemporary Art.
Time Lapse from Rotterdam CS to Witte de With
Short Time Lapse showing you how to get to Witte de With Centrum for Contemporary Art
Rotterdam - Zuid. A Bike Tour with Erik van Lieshout
On 16 September 2012, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and Rotterdam ArchiGuides presented a guided bike tour that offered a new look into the city of Rotterdam. Taking inspiration from Witte de With Publishers' Rotterdam series and the forthcoming fifth volume with Rotterdam-based artist Erik van Lieshout (to be released in 2013), this tour provided an insight into the sites of inspiration and research of the artist. The bike tour guided by Erik van Lieshout took participants to the South of Rotterdam and highlighted the city's art, architecture and cultural sites from an unexpected perspective.
Saturday 17 June Opening Weekend Cinema Olanda: Platform
A series of events, talks, performances, and screenings that draw on Cinema Olanda and its underlying questions surrounding the Netherlands' (inter)national image regarding the Dutch cultural, political, and historical landscape. These will be meditated upon in dialogue, in the spirit of artist Wendelien van Oldenborgh's wider practice, expanding on key topics that have emerged through her process and collaborations with academics, thinkers, writers, artists and institutions. A bike tour organized by OMI will explore Pendrecht, where Cinema Olanda (2017) was shot, and which stands as a key community in the narrative of Rotterdam the city, architecture post-Reconstruction, and changing topographies of community and social history.
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14.00 Screening of archival footage by Cineclub Vrijheidfilms with talks between Wendelien van Oldenborgh (artist), Andre Reeder (Film Maker) and Juanita Lalji (Educator, Activist).
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15.30 Screening of Wendelien van Oldenborgh's Prologue: Squat/Anti-Squat (2016)
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16.30 What it the significance of a Platform at this moment of reconfiguration in the Dutch artistic and cultural landscape? What are the current conditions for critique, for agency and for solidarity? Panel Discussion on ‘conditions for criticality’, moderated and with an introduction by curator Lucy Cotter. With Amandla Awethu! (writer, community organizer, associated with ‘First Things First’), Charl Landvreugd (Artist, Curator, Writer), David Dibosa (Writer, Curator), among other speakers.
Contribution by Patricia Kaersenhout (Artist).
LOSON: The Hidden Story of Radical Surinamese Movements in the 1970s and 80s
LOSON: The Hidden Story of Radical Surinamese Movements in the 1970s and 80s
Saturday 24 June 2017, 1:30 – 4:30 pm
Language: Dutch
Location: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
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Did you know that in the 1970s, in cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, an (informal) ‘spreidingsbeleid’ or ‘spreading policy’ was active that excluded Surinamese from certain neighbourhoods? Did you know that there was an (informal) policy in Amsterdam that only one Surinamese, Turkish or Moroccan family could inhabit a apartment block? Did you know that there were radical Surinamese emancipation movements active in the 1970s and 1980s that organized against racism and inequality and, among other things, squatted a flat in the Bijlmer? Chances are you did not, because these stories and histories have long been hidden. The New Urban Collective has found books and documents in the Black Archives that reveal these hidden stories of black emancipation movements spearheaded by organisations such as the National Organisation of Surinamese in the Netherlands (LOSON) and Surinamese Laborers and Workers Organization (SAWO).
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Program
1:30 pm – Welcome by the Black Archives
2:40 pm – Screening of Onderneming Onderdak (Dutch, no subtitles)
3:25 pm - Break
3:40 pm – Andre Reeder and Ernestine Comvalius in conversation
4:30 pm – End
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This event is part of The Black Archives on Tour: Hidden Stories of Black Resistance in the Netherlands (17 – 25 June), and Cinema Olanda: Platform program.
Rotterdam Travel Guide - Netherlands Joyful Times
Rotterdam Travel Guide - Netherlands Joyful Times
Rotterdam is a municipality and city in the Dutch province of South-Holland, situated in the west of The Netherlands and part of the Randstad. The municipality is the second largest in the country (behind Amsterdam), with a population of approximately 601,300 people and over 2.9 million inhabitants in its metropolitan area (combined with The Hague).
The port of Rotterdam is the largest in Europe. From 1962 to 2004, it was the world's busiest port; then it was superseded by Shanghai. Now Rotterdam is the fourth biggest port in the world. Rotterdam is known as a city of architecture. A few square kilometres of the city centre offers a complete overview of what the twentieth century has produced in terms of modern architecture. Due to this more modern atmosphere and the presence of several relatively high buildings (for Dutch standards), the city is especially interesting for Dutch people to visit.
The atmosphere of Rotterdam is absolutely distinct from other Dutch cities. The mentality can best be described as 'can do'. From the waiters you meet to the businessmen and the people who have just arrived as migrants, all of them breathe a dynamic optimism of getting forward with things and their town. The modern looks of the city, the bustle and its building spree all add to this impression. That said, you might also find that people are sometimes somewhat too straight with you. And yes, the city is not the cosiest, or the most picturesque of towns, especially on drab winter days. But; get acquainted with this small metropolis, easiest done on days of one of the festivals with nice weather, and you will come to love it.
Like any city in The Netherlands, Rotterdam is very, very bicycle-friendly. Getting around by bike is probably the fastest way of travel within the city. There are separate bike lanes on most major streets and there are separate traffic lights for bicyclists. Avoid getting your tire in the tram rails. Always cross tram rails at an angle. Always lock your bike securely when leaving it, preferably chained to a fixed object.
There are five metro lines operated by RET. Lines A (green), B (yellow) and C (red), share tracks between Schiedam Centrum and Capelsebrug and offer an east-west connection. Lines D (light blue) and E (blue, also known as RandstadRail) share tracks between Rotterdam Centraal and Slinge and offer a north-south connection. Interchange between all lines is possible on Beurs station in the city center.
The area around metrostation Blaak, called Oude haven (Old Harbour), is not only worth seeing but has also a lot of pubs and restaurants. The Rotterdam dining scene is developing very fast with new restaurants opening very often. While most of the attention focusses on new Michelin-star aspiring places, there is very much a trend towards high quality mid-range restaurants offering French/Dutch cuisine.
Innovation here takes many forms, and one that is immediately apparent is the quality of the coffee served in the city's huge array of cafes. Until recently, there was only one coffee roastery in Rotterdam – the excellent Man Met Brill – but at last count there were 12, all roasting direct-trade beans to caffeinate coffee-obsessed locals. Cafes of every type (hipster hole-in-the-walls to traditional grand cafes) dot the city streets, functioning as work and study spaces for the digital generation as well as places where friends and family catch up over a drink or casual meal.
A lot to see in Rotterdam such as :
Cube house
Euromast
Erasmusbrug
Rotterdam Zoo
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
UNESCO World Heritage Kinderdijk
Market Hall
Kunsthal. Rotterdam
Maritime Museum
Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk
Witte Huis
Miniworld Rotterdam
Arboretum trompenburg
Witte de Withstraat
the Rotterdam
Het Park
Fenix Food Factory
Wereldmuseum
Dutch Photo Museum
Plaswijckpark
Port of Rotterdam
Stadhuis
Oude haven
Blaak
The Destroyed City
Nieuwe Maas
Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art
Kralingen Lake
Het Nieuwe Instituut
Sonneveld House
Museumpark
Natural History Museum Rotterdam
Museum Rotterdam
Chabot Museum
Oceanium
Kralingse Bos
Willemsbrug
Oude Binnenweg
Beurstraverse
Stedelijk Museum Schiedam
Holland Casino Rotterdam
Rotte
Lage Bergse Bos
Netherlands Architecture Institute
Vroesenpark
Delft Pottery De Delftse Pauw
National Genever Museum Schiedam
Meent
Wilhelminapier
( Rotterdam - Netherlands ) is well know as a tourist destination because of the variety of places you can enjoy while you are visiting Rotterdam . Through a series of videos we will try to show you recommended places to visit in Rotterdam - Netherlands
Join us for more :
Witte de Withstraat één grote expositieruimte
Bezoekers van het festival De Wereld van Witte de With waren afgelopen weekend zowel publiek als decorstuk.
Briellenaren vragen om eerherstel Witte de With tijdens Maskerade
Het is een traditie die al bijna 200 jaar bestaat. Op 5 december komen Briellenaren gemaskerd en verkleed naar de binnenstad van Brielle. Daar wordt op een ludieke manier geprotesteerd tegen van alles en nog wat.Dit jaar wordt bijvoorbeeld gepleit voor eerherstel van Witte de With. De zeevaarder, die is geboren is in Brielle, is omstreden vanwege zijn betrokkenheid bij de Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) en Westindische Compagnie (WIC). De meningen over zijn rol zijn verdeeld.De Brielse Maskerade trekt de laatste jaren steeds meer toeschouwers. Een paar jaar leek de tocht wat weg te kwijnen, maar trekt inmiddels weer vele honderden mensen. Sinds 2016 staat de Brielse Maskerade officieel op de UNESCO-lijst, de lijst Nationale Inventaris Immaterieel Cultureel Erfgoed Nederland.Volgens goed gebruik voltrok de optocht voor voor het oog van de burgemeester en wethouders, die op deze manier haarfijn een spiegel van hun beleid voorgehouden wordt.
Trailer: 'Relational Stalinism – The Musical' by Michael Portnoy
Michael Portnoy
'Relational Stalinism – The Musical'
6 weeks of world-bending
29 January – 6 March 2016
Performances:
every Thursday/Saturday/Sunday
11 performances running across 2 hours
Each cycle starts on the hour at 2pm and 4pm.
Week 1: January 30, 31
Week 2: February 4, 6, 7
Week 3: February 11, 13, 14
Week 4: February 18, 20, 21
Week 5: February 25, 27, 28
Week 6: March 3, 5, 6
“Relational Stalinism”
In opposition to the strangling of museum spaces worldwide by rampant immaterial kudzu, (i.e. Post-French Post-Conceptual Dance, Dance-We-Can’t-Call-Dance, Po-Faced Minimalism, Feel-Good Participatory Glibbery, (a.k.a. Too Many Seagulls), and Performance with no qualities whatsoever aside from its leeching of court-approved historical referents, (a.k.a. Fancy Shoulder Piggybacking)), the breed of Relational Stalinism arose in a Theater Internment Facility in Preoccupied Benelux in the late Twenty-Teens. The primary tenets of Relational Stalinism are: Emboldening Confusion, Logocratic Exuberance, and Antic Behaviorism. Relational Stalinist works use a slippery iron fist to unbutton the viewer’s buggy of self and catapult her into a realm of truths only palpable through higher forms of irrationality.
This advanced breed of world-bending adopts the degree-zero performance palette as a constraint (performers, in a room, that’s it), but pushes it out of monochrome and into a pubotany of deviously vibrant offshoots which stretch participants’ language and behavior in the service of invention.
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Running across six spaces at Witte de With, 'Relational Stalinism – The Musical' is an ambitious assemblage of new performances created by artist Michael Portnoy, enacted and developed with a diverse troupe of dancers, actors, singers and improvisers. Many different registers of performance will simultaneously cohabit the institution, mixing inscrutable role-play scenarios, experimental sketch comedy, hyperactive spectatorship, melodramatic operatic interlude, prog-rock micro-dance and teary-eyed theoretical soliloquy. Combining futurology with satire, this exhibition transmutes the seeds of prevalent approaches to visual arts performance as a form of generative critique.
'Relational Stalinism – The Musical' is the latest branch of Portnoy’s Improvement League, initiated in the Taipei Biennial 2010, which seeks to “improve” existing breeds of art-making by pruning, grafting and hybridizing certain lines of thought in a kind of conceptual horticulture.
Credits:
Director: Michael Portnoy
Producer / Assistant Director: Natasha Hoare
Co-Producer: Maaike Gouwenberg
Director of Photography: Nicholas Burrough
Sound: Jaap W.Sijben
Focus Puller: Luuk Zonnenberg
Editor: Leonardo Cariglino
Grade: Rachel Stone
Cast: Mark Bellamy, Thomas Dudkiewicz, Jimmy Guacamole, Margo van de Linde, Keyna Nara, Evelyne Rossie, Loveday Smith, Gerrie de Vries
Supported by: Fonds 21, Gemeente Rotterdam, The American Embassy in The Hague
No More Blackface: #ZWARTEPIETKENNIET
'No More Blackface: #ZWARTEPIETKENNIET'
Tuesday 20 June 2017, 7 - 9 pm
Moderator: Malique Mohamed
Language: Dutch
Location: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
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Recent years have seen a new wave in the antiracism movement, in which Zwarte Piet is seen as a product of the actively forgotten colonial and slavery past, but is also a symbol of underlying institutional racism, discrimination, and inequality in contemporary society. Activism against Zwarte Piet has touched a sensitive spot for the nation and unloosed intense public discussion. Through demonstrations, sharply-divided public opinion, public debates, petitions, litigation, and more, it seems the tradition is slowly changing.
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While in the capital the choice has been made to say goodbye to the racist caricature, it is still evident in Rotterdam. In November 2016, 200 civilians were arrested whilst peacefully protesting against the tradition. Amnesty International called the mayors’ ban on demonstrations that day a violation. How has it come about that there is a greater intensity of activism against Zwarte Piet and racism in Amsterdam, compared to Rotterdam? How can cooperation between activists and communities in different cities be promoted, and how can activists, politicians, lawyers, artists and people from other disciplines in Rotterdam organize against Zwarte Piet?
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Program
18:30 – Doors open: possibility to visit the exhibition
19:00 – Welcome: Forgotten Histories about the fight against Black Pete from the Black Archives
19.15 – Nourdin el Ouali (NIDA)
19.25 – Gerbrig Klos (Amnesty International)
19.35 – Caitlin Schaap and Elvin Rigters (activists against Black Pete and inequality in Rotterdam)
19.45 – Break
20.00 – Spoken word Ka’at Santos
20.10 – Dialogue between Nourdin el Ouali, Gerbrig Klos, Caitlin Schaap, and Elvin Ritgers, moderated by Malique Mohamud
21.00 - End of program
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This event is part of 'The Black Archives on Tour: Hidden Stories of Black Resistance in the Netherlands' (17th – 25th June), and 'Cinema Olanda: Platform' program.
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ILLUSIONS by Grada Kilomba
ILLUSIONS
Grada Kilomba
Friday 14 July 2017, 7:30 - 9:30 pm
Location: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
Language: English
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— Participants: Katayoun Arian, Grada Kilomba
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In this performance, previously staged at the Biennale de Sao Paulo (2016), artist Grada Kilomba brings the oral African tradition of storytelling into a contemporary context to recover the memories and realities of a neo-colonial world. The artist explores the coexistence of times through her recasting of the myths of Narcissus and Echo, in which the present seems suffocated by a colonial past. Through her performance, she poses the question: How do we break out of this colonial and patriarchal mould? The performance will be followed by a Q&A with the artist, moderated by Katayoun Arian.
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'ILLUSIONS' by Kilomba is curated by Arian as part of First Things First's program ‘Decolonial Options: The Futurity of Decolonial Practice’. During a week-long program in the framework of the exhibition 'Cinema Olanda: Platform', First Things First aims to critically investigate and discuss the coloniality of Dutch society and beyond by inviting divergent actors whose works circle around decoloniality in one closed, and two public events. What does it mean to decolonise and what are the ethical questions that underlie the project of decolonisation?
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Program
7:30 pm: Intro
7:40 – 8:20 pm: Performance
8:20 - 8:30 pm: Break
8:30 – 9:30 pm: In Conversation and Q&A
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First Things First approaches the vast subject of decoloniality moreover through the five stages of awareness, Denial, Guilt, Shame, Recognition and Reparation as formulated by Kilomba in her art and writing, as tools to understand and overcome colonial power structures.
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First Things First consists of Katayoun Arian (Curator, Researcher, Writer), Louise Autar (Activist, Organiser) and Max de Ploeg (Activist, Political / Cultural Programmer).
MSc 1 Interior project: Witte de With / Tent art gallery, Rotterdam, Architecture
The main goal of the project was making a nice small and public square in the city (Rotterdam, Netherlands) which it does not have at the time of writing. The square could be used for all kinds of benefits like showing movies, music and art performances organized by the Witte de With or Tent. The square is separated from the museum with a large staircase the material used at the sqaure side is Litracon (translucent concrete) which shows the silhouette of the people walking over there. This generates a nice and subtle end of the square on this site. On the exciting site are trees covering the private houses on the 1st 2nd and 3rd floor but still giving entrance to the public functions on the ground floor.
There is a bar and a museum shop at the meeting the city part of the design. This is one of the important activators of the square and the museum.
For more information about the project:
Black Figures, Black Voices: Edgar Cairo [1/2]
Black Figures, Black Voices: Edgar Cairo
Thursday 6 July 2017, 7 - 10 pm
Location: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
Language: English
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—Participants: Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) , Cindy Kerseborn, Charl Landvreugd
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A second session of Black Figures, Black Voices focuses on the work of the Surinamese -Dutch poet and author Edgar Cairo (1948-2000). The evening starts with a screening of Cindy Kerseborn's (Film Maker) documentary 'Edgar Cairo: Ik ga dood om jullie hoofd' (2011), about the life and work of this writer, poet, painter and performer. Kerseborn's film highlights Cairo's role as a pioneer in the thinking about a black identity and a black consciousness in the context of the Dutch colonial history and post-colonial present. During this evening, Charl Landvreugd (Artist, Researcher) will read from Cairo’s poems and present a performative lecture that focuses on reading Cairo as theory. In the exhibition space, a number of rarely exhibited paintings by Edgar Cairo will be on display. The program ends with time for questions and a dialogue between the audience, Charl Landvreugd and Cindy Kerseborn.
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Program
7 pm: Charl Landvreugd: 'Dat Boelgedicht' poem van Edgar Cairo (in Dutch)
7:10 pm: Welcome & introduction on behalf of ASCA
7:20 pm: Screening ‘Edgar Cairio: “Ik ga dood om jullie Hoofd”’ (English subs)
8:10 pm: Break
8:30 pm: Lecture on Cairo by Charl Landvreugd
9 pm: Questions with audience
9:50 pm: Closing Poem
10 pm: Ending
Black Archives, Black Radicalism Session
Black Archives, Black Radicalism Session
Saturday 24 June 2017, 7:30 – 9:30 pm
Language: English
Location: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
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—Participants: Kehinde Andrews
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The current movements against Zwarte Piet and racism has been called “the second wave of anti-racism”. The first was provoked by organisations in the 70s and 80s, such as LOSON and SAWO. However, in the Black Archives an “actively forgotten” history of radical black activists who organized in the 50s and 60s has been recently discovered. The story of Otto and Hermie Huiswoud, in particular, stands out as a hidden history of the fight against racism and colonialism in Europe. The Huiswouds were part of an international network of black radicals who emerged during the Harlem Renaissance, and organized based on Marxist and pan-African critiques. They were connected to well-known thinkers, writers, and organizers such as W.E.B. Du Bois, George Padmore, and Claude McKay. Otto Huiswoud debated Marcus Garvey in Jamaica, met with Lenin, and was critical to the early independence movement of Surinamese people in the Netherlands - yet his name and work is unknown by many.
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Dr. Kehinde Andrews will discuss black radicalism, and what role black radicals played in Europe, to sketch the historical context in which the Huiswouds existed. What is black radicalism, and how can it be understood in contemporary society? How were black radicals from different countries, continents and generations connected? And what lessons can we learn from them for contemporary activism and political action?
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Program
7:30 pm – Welcome
7:40 pm – Keynote: Dr. Kehinde Andrews
8:30 pm – Break
8:45 pm – Discussion
9:30 pm – End
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This event is part of The Black Archives on Tour: Hidden Stories of Black Resistance in the Netherlands (17th – 25th June), and Cinema Olanda: Platform program.
CORNERSTONES
CORNERSTONES
Lecture program 2008, Witte de With/Rotterdam. February 7 Dominic van den Boogerd on René Daniëls.
For more:
Black Figures, Black Voices: Zwart Belicht; Painted black
Black Figures, Black Voices: Zwart Belicht; Painted black
Tuesday 4 July 2017, 7 - 10 pm
Location: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
Language: English
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—Participants: Tessa Boerman, Valika Smeulders, Naomi Veldwijk
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The first session of Black Figures, Black Voices focuses on the documentary Zwart Belicht; Painted Black (2008) by Tessa Boerman, which zooms in on the hidden stories behind black figures in 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings Shedding new light on famous paintings such as those of Pieter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt van Rijn, as well as less famous works of art, the film tempts us to look at what was meant to be seen, but has often been overlooked. In response to Zwart Belicht, Valika Smeulders (researcher at KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) discusses issues of representation, colonial history and art historical canons with Boerman, and performer Naomi Veldwijk reads from Robin Coste Lewis’ collection of poems, Voyage of the Sable Venus (2015).
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Program
7 pm: Opening with poem performed by Naomi Veldwijk
7:10 pm: Welcome & introduction on behalf of ASCA
7:20 pm: Screening “Zwart Belicht (English subs) & short Q&A
8:30 pm: Break
8:45 pm: Poem
8:50 pm: Conversation between Tessa Boerman & Valika Smeulders
9:30 pm: Questions with audience
9:50 pm: Closing poem
10 pm: Ending
Gemeente plaatst anti-terreurblokkades op Witte de With
Rotterdam is maandag gestart met de plaatsing van 'anti-terreurblokkades' in de Witte de Withstraat en de Meent. In de straten komen onder andere speciale terrashekken, verankerde paaltjes en boombakken."Het is straatmeubilair om te voorkomen dat voertuigen op grote groepen mensen kunnen inrijden", vertelt Anne-Marie Klaassen, de projectleider die twee jaar met het project bezig is geweest. Ze hoopt dat de bouw in maart is afgerond.[article:177850:Rotterdam neemt anti-terreurmaatregelen in het centrum] De Rotterdamse gemeenteraad heeft lang gesproken over de 'anti-terreurobjecten'. Er werd gevreesd voor economische schade voor de plaatselijke ondernemers.[article:175020:Stel anti-terreurmaatregelen Witte de With uit]De gebiedscommissie Centrum riep in november nog op om te wachten met de anti-terreurmaatregelen. De gemeente heeft echter besloten om niet te wachten en de veiligheid voorop te stellen.